Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class Fleet Command Ship

Note: While Zentraedi ships have been assigned Terran naval/space type designators, it must be stressed that their size and armaments placed them in a class of their own, matched only by contemporary Tirolian and modern Terran construction of like designations. As such, their designations must be viewed as indicators of intent and use rather than absolute strength. In addition, the proper translation of the Zentraedi vessel designations into English was never completely agreed upon; for instance, some texts call the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command ship a 'flagship' or 'lead battlecruiser'. Some other sources drop the "g" in Vergnitzs; this is because of an early lack of understanding of the palatalized "n", called "gnoumon". No seperate character exists for this in the Zentraedi alphabet, and it is denoted by a diacritical - a dot above the letter "n".

Names and disposition:

These ships were built at numerous locations throughout the Robotech Mercantile Empire from 1498 through 1840 and at the Robotech Factory Satellite from 1830 through 2009. There have been three different versions of the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class. The first version was built in small numbers only (43), and was followed in 1501 by the second version. The Ci'Vonian crisis of 1512 led to a redesign which became the third version. This version, while receiving numerous upgrades to its subsystems over the years, remained in production for 497 years. It was proven impossible to refit the second version with the improvements of the third version. The total number of Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command ships constructed is 41,528.

Of the first two versions (2,645 built total), 56 were destroyed prior to the Ci'Vonian disaster. During the disaster, 896 Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class vessels defected to the Ci'Vonian side. In the wars and skirmishes that followed, no less than 815 of the renegade ships and 1,103 of the 1,493 loyal vessels were reported as destroyed or suspected to have received action damage that led to their constructional total loss. The remaining 390 Tirolian vessels were all decommissioned as the first Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class vessels of the third version entered service. Of this final version, 38,883 units were completed. Of these, 2,743 were destroyed prior to 2010. The Imperial Class fleet contained 15,827 Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class vessels, all sharing in the "infection" of that fleet. Of the remaining Tirolian controlled ships approximately 19,400 were part of the Grand Fleet. After the Zentraedi Holocaust, approximately 900 Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class vessels remained in the Tirolian fleets, and 1 in the RDF Zentraedi fleet, although another was captured with the Robotech Factory Satellite in 2014. However, most of the Zentraedi vessels suffered from protoculture depletion and the RDF decommissioned both their Flagships within the next year. The remainder were failed, decommissioned due to protoculture depletion or destroyed around 2020.

Ship's Complement:

Ships' crew (3100 men),

Air Group (4000 men),

Troops (8000 men),

Life support limits are for a full combat complement and about 5000 supernumeraries (20.000 Zentraedi total). Approximately four times this
number can be carried for a limited period of time.

Dimensions:

Length: 4024 m over all.

Height: 653 m over all.

Width : 601 m over all.

Mass : 170,000,000 metric tons operational (typical).

Fuel mass: 63,200,000 metric tons maximum (typical).

Propulsion Systems:

Main power system: Zorrelev-413-Trafla protoculture-fueled Reflex furnace cluster. The powerplant of a Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class vessel can nominally deliver up to 132.6 Petawatts of power, and can operate for 75 minutes at maximum power before overheat initiates auto-shutdown.

Maneuvering Thrusters (115): fusion-plasma reaction thruster clusters with steerable nozzles. There are 6 on the forward and aft dorsal hull, 24 on the central dorsal hull, 4 on the forward and aft sides and 16 in the central sides, 8 thrusters low in the nose, 8 mounted on the forward ventral, 3 in the central ventral and 6 in the aft ventral.

Reaction-mass Thrusters (8): Eight Varrelev Ts-Tilgano fusion-plasma reaction thrusters with protoculture energizer mounted in two horizontal rows en echelon of four in the stern of the ship.
There are no secondary thrusters; breaking maneuvers are made with the main thrusters using exhaust deflectors opening in the dorsal and ventral engine sections.

Planetary Capabilities: The Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class has atmospheric capabilities through its reaction engines and anti-gravity systems. The ship cannot make a cold landing without exerting fatal pressure on the underslung hangar unless the ship touches down on an extensively prepared landing field with docking clamps or in an ocean. The ship will float in the latter, but is less stable than other Zentraedi designs unless large amounts of water are shipped on the lower hangar deck. Furthermore, only the upper ingress/egress ports will open above the waterline, which greatly hampers access to the ship. In all, the captains of Nupetiet Vergnitzs craft preferred to remain in orbit or spacedock.

Endurance and mobility limits:

The dry stores endurance is 30 months maximum; after that, the ships of this class need to restock. Water stores are recycled almost totally. If fewer or no auxiliary vessels are carried, the freed hangar space can be used to store additional consumables.
The Nupetiet Vergnitzs vessels occasionally acted as a tender to smaller ships such as the Tou Redir, which had less extensive stores.

The mecha consumables supplies (mainly missiles) are plentiful due to the volume of the ship; the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class is able to sustain continuous combat operations for more than 20 days.
The missile magazines for the ship's own launchers are typically empty after three major space battles.

The Reflex furnace can function for about 35 years at normal usage levels before an energizer rebuild is necessary.

At full power, the main propulsion systems can nominally produce up to 3.8 Teranewtons of thrust at a minimal reaction mass efficiency profile, or as little as 73.7 Giganewtons of thrust at a maximum efficiency setting. At lower power levels, these thrusts are commensurately smaller.

At full power, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs's can nominally achieve a maximum delta-v of 257 kps at the cruising acceleration of 0.1 gees, a maximum delta-v of 48.9 kps at the battle acceleration of 1.0 gees, and a delta-v of at most 15.2 kps at the flank acceleration of 2.3 gees. At lower power levels, these ranges are commensurately smaller.

The fold systems were not navigationally guaranteed for any single jump beyond 10 kiloparsecs. If longer voyages were required, the ship had to conduct multiple fold jumps.

The maximum sustained atmospheric speed is Mach 2.3. The maximum hover time on the anti-gravity systems is limited only by the protoculture supplies and maintenance requirements.

Including regular refits, the hull is designed to have an anticipated lifetime of 640 years.

Weapon Systems:

(Note: this applies only to the final systems of the third version. The differences between the second and third versions are detailed in the text).

Makral Deim 655 particle cannon (18): The main anti-ship weapons are eighteen heavy particle cannon. Four are mounted in the nose, with the phased antenna for the remote mecha control system acting as lip-up covers. The others are mounted under armored covers on other parts of the hull. Two are mounted on the upper forward hull, near to the upper deck edge. A double mount is located under the nose with a single large cover. Behind these two cannons are six more, three on each side, under six smaller covers with one single cannon per mount. The aft section of the Nupetiet-Vergnitzs has the final four cannons, two on the dorsal and two on the ventral, once again in single mounts and under cover, although these last mounts have an impressive field of fire. The particle beam has an effective range of 300,000 km. and a full power discharge of 2.3 Terajoules, equivalent to 460 tons of TNT. Although the cannon could be fired at lower power settings (and commensurate increases in the rate of fire) the highest power setting was typical in combat. The rate of fire at this setting was approximately six salvos per minute.

Makral Mossil 918 particle cannon (200): For centuries this combined particle beam and laser weapon has been the standard medium cannon armament on Zentraedi vessels. Two different beam weapons (variable frequency laser and particle beam cannon) are provided on one mount so that the discharge medium can be chosen as the optimum for the local target and environment conditions. Both weapons have the same yield at the muzzle. The laser can be fired in a low power mode directly before the particle beam fires, this setting is typically used to burn a vacuum path for the particles through an atmosphere. Because of the slow recharge time of the larger weapons, and the flexibility inherent in the double mount, this cannon turret is the weapon system most often utilized on board Zentraedi vessels.
For ground support, it is the only effective weapon as the other systems are to heavy to be used around own troops.
The cannon, as most Zentraedi beam weapon systems, has an effective range of 300,000 km. Each full-intensity shot has a yield of 1000 MJ, and the cannons can cycle through their firing sequence once every three seconds. Although these cannons are mounted to provide fire on all bearings, the highest concentration is in the nose and on the sides of the nose.

Deuawhaug Rasar 89 (60): A reloadable Silo Launch System (RSLS), or as it is better known, a torpedo tube, capable of firing large anti-ship and ground bombardment torpedoes. The tubes can reload in 3.6 seconds, and have a 40 round magazine close-by. These launchers are mounted in the lower forward hull, between the lower and upper armour mantels.
The missiles used are the SSA-1 Sniper (Lojredbeth Deuawhaugh) and the SSA-2 Scrapper (Letkes Deuawhaug) missiles. The former is a nuclear missile with a 326 kT reaction warhead, the latter is a conventional tipped missile with a warhead of 2.3 metric tons.
Both missiles are optimized for anti-ship strikes in deep space, but can be used in orbital bombardment modes or in an atmosphere.

Touwhaug Rasar 481 (240): A missile launcher mounted in a pop-up turret, firing anti-mecha/missile missiles, though the projectiles can guide on point-blank enemy ships. When the missiles are released they are already on their intercept vectors, or very close to them. Each turret has a reload time of 3.6 seconds and a magazine with a 100 round capacity. They are mounted for spherical coverage.
The missile system used is the SAA-1 Granite (Gliquoun Touwhaug), a weapon with a conventional blast fragmentation warhead of 278 kg and an atmospheric range of 112 km. at a speed of Mach 7.5.

Electronics

The Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class mounts a unique remote control system enabling her to override the navigational systems of deployed mecha and return them to their fleet.

A very comprehensive sensor suite was part of all versions of the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class. This included a powerful low frequency radar in a traversable transceiver under the hull, two sensor spikes in the lower nose, and numerous other sensors in blisters sprinkled over the hull.

Design Notes:

As the command ships for fleets, often numbering in the thousands of ships,
the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class was the most prestigious in the Zentraedi navy.
Duty on such a ship as a staff officer was often the prelude to an assignment
as commanding officer of a smaller flotilla. The Nupetiet Vergnitzs ships had
the firepower and troop capacity to defend their standing as well, making the
class the most heavily armed of all Zentraedi vessels save monitors, and
second only to a dedicated Quiltra Queleual only in troop carrying capacity. So voluminous was the class that they often doubled as tenders for the smaller vessels.

The Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class can best be described as a lumpy, vaguely rectangular box 4 km long, with a slightly greater height than width. In addition, a large hangar extending below the hull proper to the rear gave the class an almost pregnant appearance. The front end was marked by the four angular blisters which mounted the phased array transmitters of the so-called manual override beam system, which was capable of overriding the navigational systems of a large number of mecha remotely. The antenna's were mounted on the covers of the forward main particle beam cannons. In combat, these covers opened backwards to unmask the heavy cannons underneath. Fourteen more heavy cannons were mounted, eight under and two on top of the forward hull, and four more divided over the aft dorsal and ventral. As remarked above, a large hangar assemblage was further aft on the ventral. The rear of the ship mounted the eight main reaction engines.

The armament is, like most Zentraedi designs, concentrated forward. The heavy cannons are either mounted in the nose or capable of firing in most forward angles. In addition, the yield of the heavy particle weapons is second only to the new generation weapons mounted on the Macross class. Over half of the medium cannon armament is located forward as well, mostly of the forward nose surface and the forward flanks and chin. This still leaves enough batteries for a more than adequate coverage of the other firing arcs. The heavy torpedoes are mounted in the groove between the bottom hull and the upper armour sections, in the forward part of the ship. Although these launchers are the standard Zentraedi type also mounted on their other ships, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs mounts more of these tubes than any other design. Finally, there is an extensive defensive missile system installed on all arcs.

Internally, there are 11 deck levels. Mecha bays are mounted on all sides,
as well as forward and on the dorsal and ventral. However, few of these hangars
are suited for the larger auxiliaries as well. One of these is of course the
large ventral hangar, and another auxiliary ship bay is mounted on the dorsal,
aft of the upper heavy particle cannons. Two side bays can also contain one
Quel Quallie or several smaller vessels. The command spaces and several cargo and
holding bays are sited in the nose of the ship. The central section is mostly
dedicated to fuel, mecha bays and attitude thrusters. Farther aft are the lower
hangar and the reaction engines. Troop and crew quarters are mostly forward or
aft of the center section.

The older versions of the Nupetiet Vergnitzs have not been in service
with the Tirolian Empire for almost four centuries. They were generally identical to the
well known 3rd version, their most obvious difference being a smaller lower hangar, an enlarged upper hangar, no heavy cannons on the dorsal and no manual override system in the nose. Theoretically, a few of these vessels may still be operational with the Disciples of Zor, but they are fast nearing the end of their designed hull lifespan.

History:

In order to command their ever growing fleets, the Tirolian Mercantile Empire
designed the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command ship for its highest
Zentraedi commanders. The fleet command ship was equipped with quarters for the
staff needed to control task forces of several thousands of ships. To protect
these staffs, and to project power in their own right, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs
was the most powerfully armed Zentraedi ship save a monitor.

The Ci'Vonian crisis was a disaster for this class as much as it was for the
rest of the Zentraedi and the Empire. Almost one out of three fleet command
ships had fallen prey to the mass defections that formed the most dangerous
part of the crisis, and the other ships were immediately at the forefront on
the ensuing war. Few of the class survived the following two years of furious
fighting, as they were natural targets for all enemy ships. As part of the
reforms triggered by the crisis, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs-design was reviewed,
and soon a third version came into use. This subclass soon replaced the older
versions, which were decommissioned and scrapped. The alterations included an
upgrading of the armament, with 40 more medium cannons mounted, and an
additional two heavy cannons were installed on the dorsal. This prompted a
relocation of much of the dorsal hangar space to the ventral, and gave the
class the odd looking 'pregnant' appearance. Most important refit, however, was
the fitting of the manual override beam system to the front of the vessel. with
this device it was hoped that a closer control could be enforced, and the
chance of further defections reduced considerably.

Over the next four centuries, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs fulfilled their roles as
fleet command ships with impressive reliability and acumen. The sight of such a
vessel often caused a greater apprehension under its opponents than a larger
number of ships would, as a fleet command ship usually meant a large number of
ships were nearby, or it served as a sign that major attention was now being
directed towards the theatre.

Typically, a Nupetiet Vergnitzs controlled two hundred ships or more. Other
fleets could be assigned as well, so the number of ships assigned could climb
far higher than the more common number. For example, the Imperial Class fleet,
almost a million ships, were all commanded from a Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class
vessel. In addition to their combat and command taskings, the class also often
served as a tender for the smaller vessels such as the Tou Redir class, which
could not carry that many supplies, and often transferred some of the command
ships' stores to replenish their won. Another vital function was battlefield
reconnaissance and air cover. Relatively, the Nupetiet Vergnitzs carried a
large fleet of scout auxiliaries and Gnerl fighters. These were considered
to be command assets, to be deployed as battlegroup reserve. The troops carried
on board were also generally experienced units, with a disproportionate amount
of cavalry troops, which made them faster and harder-hitting than more common
troop allotments, although they could sustain this for less time before they
required relief.

While the Zentraedi Holocaust virtually wiped out the Zentraedi fleets,
losses among the Nupetiet Vergnitzs ships were relatively the highest of any
class, for the RDF alliance deliberately gave them a higher priority in their
targeting systems, and the Grand Fleet lost most of its coordination early on
and the individual ships tended to concentrate on the later ships in their
range. Very few ships survived, and by 2020 these too were all powerless, decommissioned or destroyed.